E. E. Cummings 
Hist Whist: And Other Poems for Children 

Now children can claim for their very own the puddle-wonderful (mudluscious) world where buds know better than books don’t grow, where little itchy mousies with scuttling eyes rustle and run and hidehidehide, and the ree ray rye roh rowster shouts rawr OO. 

Cummings’s poetry more than that of any other major American poet keeps faith with childhood. These twenty poems were selected by him and published privately in 1962. Hist Whist combines the original twenty 
poemes enfantins with the first appearance of the beautiful and evocative line drawings of the young California artist David Calsada. His sensitive pen has captured the spirit of Cummings’s poems in its detailed rendering of a world that only poets and children can see. 

About the author

E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) was among the most influential, widely read, and revered modernist poets. He was also a playwright, a painter, and a writer of prose. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard University and, during World War I, served with an ambulance corps in France. He spent three months in a French detention camp and subsequently wrote The Enormous Room, a highly acclaimed criticism of World War I. After the war, Cummings returned to the States and published his first collection of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys, which was characterized by his innovative style: pushing the boundaries of language and form while discussing love, nature, and war with sensuousness and glee. He spent the rest of his life painting, writing poetry, and enjoying widespread popularity and success.